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Films

The Many Passions of the Christ

Our man with the popcorn and the Aramaic phrasebook Thomas Wartenberg explains why so many people have a problem with Mel Gibson’s flay ‘n’ slay epic, and why so many others think it really is the greatest story ever told.

Ashort while ago, I chaired a panel discussion of Mel Gibson’s recently released film, The Passion of the Christ. The controversy over this film long predated its release. Accounts differ as to the precise nature of the events that led to the film being criticized for anti- Semitism well before its release, but it is clear that the trading of charges and counter-charges has helped turn the film into something more: a marker in the continuing United States culture wars and, perhaps, even a major event in world-historical terms.

The debate that I chaired took place at Mount Holyoke College, where I teach, and the panel was composed of a New Testament historian, a scholar of Jewish mysticism, the College’s Protestant minister and Catholic chaplain, and a film historian. I was asked to serve as moderator because the organizer had consulted me about whom to have on the panel, because of my being Jewish and because I play a central role in the College’s Film Studies Program.

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